Edward Snowden's speech was ruined by a bunch of random people that joined in on his video call

Edward Snowden tried to take part in a panel discussion at a
technology conference on Saturday — but was left embarrassed when
his video call was repeatedly interrupted.

Speaking at FutureFest, a conference in London held by a charity
named Nesta, he used Google Hangouts to participate from Moscow.

Since leaking NSA documents in 2013, Snowden can't travel in
person to events around the
world (he'll likely be arrested), so this is the next best
thing.

Google Hangouts allow multiple people take part in online video
calls. Snowden was in the video call using a Google profile under
the name of "Ben," but whoever set up the call hadn't locked down
the privacy settings. That meant that anyone could join — and
they did.

First up was a man sitting on his bed, who started laughing when
he realised that he was on a video call with Edward Snowden. It
looked like he was chatting to someone on the phone, too. Snowden
joked about the unexpected visitor, remarking "I see a guy in his
bed."

Business Insider/James Cook

Snowden didn't seem to mind, but then the visitor unmuted his
microphone to talk and his phone started loudly ringing, drowning
out Snowden's comments. He was quickly booted from the call.

All was well, for a while. Snowden explained that governments use
long words to describe mass surveillance, which he argues is a
trick to make people accept widespread privacy violations. But
then someone else joined the video call. They seemed surprised to
be there, shouting "holy sh*t!"

Business Insider/James Cook

Snowden looked annoyed. He was in the middle of a key point, and
suddenly someone had appeared on the call and swore at him. A
Nesta employee scrambled to mute the intruder before he could
make anymore noise.

Business Insider/James Cook

We talked to Ilan Katin, the man who interrupted the call. He
told Business Insider that he didn't mean to prank Snowden — and
he swore because he wasn't expecting the Google Hangout to be
public, let alone broadcasting live on multiple giant screens at
the FutureFest venue.

He said that he was embarrassed over what had happened. "Wanted
to see/hear but not be heard," Katin said.